


I don’t think I’ll ever get to see it

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Category: Dracula (TV 2020), Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bonus points if you can name the song the title is from XD, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, HECK MOFFAT AND GATISS, Hurt/Comfort, I’m taking liberties with agatha's relations, Jonathan Deserved Better 2k20, My First Work in This Fandom, Sister Agatha for a hot second, Takes place during episode one, book!Mina, but that’s it - Freeform, cos y’all, heck I’m nervous, its all up in the air rn, might be more idk - Freeform, they just love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: Mina (book!Mina) is witness to the wreckage of Jonathan at the convent in Budapest. She will most certainly not allow this despicable Count to indirectly (or even directly) take her fiancé from her.
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	1. have you ever wondered what heaven is like?

**Author's Note:**

> This jumps around episode one a lot and then diverges from canon XD

It was a dreary overcast day, the clouds swollen overhead like the soft gray feathers of lovelorn swallows. The gloom and mist from the fresh rain seemed to permeate every secret crevice and hidden fissure, swallowing everything in a kind of haunting half-light. A very gray day indeed, one which reflected her mood perfectly.

Mina Murray stared downwards, hands folded primly in her lap, usually plump laughing pink lips thinned with worry and despair. A sort of despair that she’d quite believed would be over with once sister Agatha had sent word that who they thought to be her fiancé had been found. She’d seen him, just now, through the small window.

That man, no, that thing- that dried husk, that withered shell... he was not her future husband. He  couldn’t be, could he? A bent twisted figure, bald, spotted with disease- an almost living rot, as he paced the small room in an eerily familiar manner.

She hadn’t yet had a closer look, her nerve had failed her at the last moment. Sister Agatha still stood, scrutinizing her carefully, dark eyes sharp. She must get up. She must carry on. She _had_ to know... so she would brave this great ordeal. For Jonathan. She stood, straightened the nun's robes Sister Agatha had cautioned her to wear, and pushed open the door.

The man standing at the door turned and Mina fought back a strangled gasp. Empty sunken eyes treated her, and a pale face, far too pale to have ever seen sunlight, as well as awful abrasions, as if he had truly started rotting while he was still living. The absolute worst part of it all was how utterly Jonathan this- this walking corpse seemed to be. His startled look at their entrance, his awkward shuffle and polite hardly noticeable nod of acknowledgment.

Sister Agatha strode forward, taking charge quickly, "Mr. Harker, I presume."

Mina hardly heard her next words, still studying the man she had once known. Her heart seemed to break at his dear too-wide ears and equally wide-eyed unease, and, even worse, his utter lack of recognition upon her entrance. Agatha sent her a quick glance and Mina nodded silently, trying to hold back the tears glistening her eyes. Agatha turned back, studying Jonathan intently, for Mina had just confirmed his identity for good. The strange half-living thing before her had once been her fiancé. 

Mina sat down next to Sister Agatha, watching as her betrothed shuffled over nervously, eyeing them warily, as a wild animal eyes people, poised for flight.

Oh, her poor dear Jonathan.

Whatever had happened to him?

* * *

Much later, after the clocks no doubt had struck half past seven in the evening, she sat, not even trying to stop the tears trailing down her cheeks.

_Oh._

That was what had changed him so.

Her poor, dear,  _brave_ , Jonathan indeed.

* * *

Mina dried her tears, face screwing up with a fury she had never felt before, an anger that gripped tight to her very being, possessing her with some nameless undefinable need to beat her breast and scream and howl at the sky like some wild animal. Injustice. That was what consumed her so. Where was the right in this situation? The justness and goodness that always prevailed, always triumphed against evil? What was right and good in her fiancé dying here and now in this little stone prison, either by her hand or his own, half mad and an unholy monster? There was no _justness_ in that. The malevolent Count Dracula would have won either way, he still would have taken dear sweet Jonathan from her and from the world, just as he had already ripped him from the blessed sight of God. How  _dare_ he? How dare Dracula try to take what was not and had never been  his at all?

She straightened, throwing away the wooden stake with a forceful clatter. It rang across the stone room, a room which had quickly turned into what seemed a prison that held them both.

Jonathan shook his head, his whole body shaking as if he were a starved man. He wept the tears she had long ago run out of as he begged with her, "Please, Mina . I am so very afraid of what I shall do. Please, don’t-“

She shook her golden blonde curls, brows furrowed with righteous anger and indignant outrage, but not at him-  never at him, coloring her voice, "No! I will most certainly  not ."

Jonathan reached his hands out pleadingly, thought better of it, and clutched them to his chest, trying to still the almost feverish shivers, "Mina, my heart, please, I am a monster, an _abomination_. My eternal soul has been torn from me by the Count." His words were filled with a terrible endless anguish, "I am a dark damned creature and I fear what shall become of you if you continue this way- please, Mina, please, I am condemned to an eternal damnation and I refuse to kill you or- or worse, give you the same deathless fate- to warp you into the same vile monstrosity that I have been turned into." His voice cracked and broke, just as her heart did, "I am so afraid that these new beastly instincts will consume what is left of my will, so I implore you, please, my love, _let me_ _die_ _._ "

Mina swallowed, beginning again, more gentle this time, but still determined, spine laced with steel, "Jonathan Harker now you listen to me." She stepped forward and he shrank back, fingers clawing at his head. Mina forged bravely ahead, undeterred, "I do not quite know what foul thing the Count has done to you, I do not know exactly what will happen come the morning sun, but I  do know that no matter what evil forbidden thing he has forced upon you, what agonies he has made you endure, he cannot change who you are. You are still my Johnny Blue Eyes, you are still a good, brave, and kind man. He cannot take you from us, no matter how hard he tries. Even he knows this. In fact, isn’t.... isn’t that why he stands even now outside this place? This otherwise inconsequential convent? Isn’t that why he’s come so far? He knows that you  _cannot_ be broken. You are unbreakable, Jonathan, my dear Jonathan."

She took ahold of one of his trembling hands, cold, lifeless, and rotting, and pressed it to her warm alive lips. Tears glistened on her cheeks as his eyes met hers, still shining with that same vibrant blue, a hue as fine and clear as the sky on the day they had first met.  


Mina whispered, smiling weakly, "You are Jonathan Harker and you would  _never_ hurt me." 


	2. I’d like to dream that it is quite beautiful

Jonathan sank back against the cobblestones, limp and loose. Mina had bound her head, dulling the overwhelming and nigh irresistible sight and smell of blood. The need for it still filled his chilled veins, the fragile pulse point thrumming in her neck like a dying bird's last frantic wing beats, warm and living and calling eagerly for him, as a lover calls for his other half.

He swallowed back bile and tried to ignore the temptation as best he could, despite every fiber of his being rebelling against such restraint of his new vile desire. He could feel something in himself fading quickly, his will or his life he did not know which. He hoped, however, it was the latter- for Mina's sake as much as his. He did not know if he could bear it if he became such an animal, a beast who’s only concern was how next to sate it’s unquenchable bloodlust. The wooden stake still lay on the floor and should Mina leave, he would crawl to it and end this cursed existence quickly.

Mina watched him carefully, chewing on her bottom lip in that endearing habit she had when lost deep in thought. She seemed breathtakingly radiant even as battered as she was, wreathed by the candlelight and crowned with golden curls as if she were her own personal sun. Mina nodded resolutely, "You need blood."

He blinked slowly, feeling a queer lethargy pulling on him now that he had quite suppressed the overwhelming need to rip out Mina's throat and quench his thirst with her blood. He opened his mouth, feeling the strange needlepoint of his teeth press insistently against his lips, "I'm quite afraid that I do."

Mina stood, "Stay there, Jonathan, I will be back soon, I swear it." She took a step, paused, and then picked up the stake off the ground as if she had seen him eyeing it. She cast one last glance, a wordless apology, before she bolted from the room and left him alone once more.

The insatiable hunger clawed at his belly like the wolves howling outside.

Jonathan twisted against the wall weakly, brows scrunching, something incredibly important pushing insistently at the back of his mind. Whatever vital piece of information that pressed upon his subconscious, however, remained shrouded in the mist of forgetfulness.

After an almost unbearably long time, the wolves finally stilling outside, he heard the patter of running feet. The door swung open and almost immediately the cloying scent of blood, fresh blood, copper and new, filled the room. He whined, fighting the urge to reach out and take it and devour anything that stood in his way. He pressed himself back against the wall as Mina approached, a cup in her hand. She knelt, whispering quietly as she brought the blood closer, "Please, Jonathan, my love, drink."

He shouldn’t. He would not forget his instructions so quickly. He would not drink it. _He would not_. Mina cupped his cheek in her hand, bringing the cup to his lips, "Please, Jonathan. We may cure you yet, and until then, I cannot let you die. Please, drink, it’s alright my love."

The first tiny taste of salt and copper drowned out his restraint. He took the cup frantically, gulping the blood down, warm and wet and delicious. It was one of the most refreshing meals he’d felt he ever had. He faintly registered Mina gasping, a hand pressing to her mouth with shock. If it was at his desperate consumption or the strange thrumming he felt in his skin, like a thousand pins and needles, he did not know or care.

He finished not long after, feeling warmth pulse through his veins, the gnawing hunger sated at least for now. He licked his lips, and blinked, feeling as if he had been merely sleeping until now. Every nerve was alive and awake, poised and quivering, as if he had never truly been conscious before.

Jonathan frowned, "Mina." His eyes widened with realization, "Mina! Where did you get this?" He dropped the cup immediately, recoiling from the blood spattered dish as if he could undo what he had done. Mina took his hand, tears welling in her eyes, "Sister Agatha drew blood from a willing nun. It was given freely, Jonathan. No harm has come to her, she just needs some rest." Mina reached out tentatively, "And for such a small price she has returned you to me, Jonathan."

Jonathan frowned, and Mina brought up their clasped hands. He expected to see his lanky too thin fingers, bone white and sickly yellow except in the areas where the strange horrendous sores had turned them a tainted red. Instead he saw his hands in perfect health- as they had been before his ordeal, slightly tanned and no longer marred by his terrible sickness brought on by the Count. He gaped, turning them around, "Mina, what is this...?"

Mina smiled gently, looking for all the world as an angel come down to earth, "The blood, it has restored you." She added, "You were wasting away, dying of starvation, without the blessed ability to die. Sister Agatha said without a meal of some sort, you would have wasted away more and more until you were merely a rotting shell of a man, thin and sickly and reduced to animalistic instinct alone. It was safer to give you blood, Jonathan, that is what I am saying. If we had not, you would eventually have gone mad in either a hundred years or one."

Jonathan swallowed, trying to smile for her sake despite the horror he felt at his own existence, words impossibly fond, "You are wonderfully clever, Mina."

Mina smiled prettily, cheeks flushing, "Here, let’s get you up." The reward of such a smile made all his pain worth it. She reached to help him up, but he found that he needed no such assistance. Strength filled his limbs, a feeling he had quite forgotten. He was no longer weary and beaten down, constantly weak and drained by Dracula's terrible influence.

He did not let go of Mina's hand, however. The wolves were howling again. He could swear that they were closer than before. The sinking feeling was back, an itch in the back of his mind that he couldn’t shake. He pulled Mina close, tucking her neatly against him, just where she had always fit. Mina sighed happily, embracing him back.

And then, a voice, "Aw, how touching."

His eyes flew open with horror. He and Mina turned towards the window, where the voice had come from. Count Dracula, the terror of both their nightmares, stared back at them, grinning widely, as if he had finally found exactly what he had been searching for.

"Hello, Johnny."


	3. a soft valley of green grass blanketed by a warm sun

The entirety of the world seemed frozen in that moment, horror lodged firmly in the couple's hearts at the hellish fiend that stood before them at the window, poised to come inside and undoubtedly have his way with them, whatever that may be. Jonathan clutched his fiancée's hand, knuckles bone-white, Mina gripping back with equal fervor.

The count smiled, cocking his head curiously, lips pulling upwards in a sick delight, "You're looking remarkably healthy, Johnny. Have you perhaps given up your foolish notion of starving yourself?"

Jonathan swallowed, his words lodged in his throat, frozen in that dark hungry gaze. He felt not unlike a helpless bird caught in a hunter's carefully set trap. Dracula blinked, truly studying the other person in the room for the first time, "Ah, and you must be Madam Mina. How nice to make your acquaintance. I do hope my dear Johnny hasn’t been telling you anything too awful about me."

Jonathan choked,  that spurring him into action. He stepped forward, trying to shield his fiancée behind him, as if he could save her from those monstrous red prying eyes. He feared he was too late to stop his scrutiny of Mina, in fact, he was suddenly very afraid that he had brought danger to her doorstep simply by association. There was no doubt in his mind that the count would see how valuable and precious she was and take her as he had done him. He could not bear the thought of Mina suffering such a terrible estrangement from all that was light and good, "D- don’t talk to her. Your quarrel is with me and me alone."

"Quite right, Johnny, quite right."

Mina chose that moment to speak up, "Why have you come all this way, Count? Surely it is not to taunt some otherwise insignificant nuns in a convent."

Dracula grinned, his teeth sharp, scraping against his blood red lips in a way that made them shudder with pure unadulterated fear, "Why Madam Mina, I’ve come to take what is mine."

Jonathan snapped, chin lifting definitely, a spark of something angry and furious there, "I’m not yours."

"Oh, I do love that bit of fire in you, that bit of the sun, Johnny." His eyes drifted to Mina's again, his fingers digging into the old stones as he clung quite impossibly to the window, "And to answer your question my dear, I’ve come all this way for what," his burning scarlet eyes glimmered with pleased amusement, "belongs to me. Come now, Johnny, let’s not make this anymore difficult than it is. I would so hate to demonstrate my determination at winning you back."

Jonathan swallowed, bright blue eyes flicking at the afeared count, back to her, and away. Mina had known her Jonathan long enough to realize he was seriously considering his offer. Her dear, sweet Jonathan, sunlight incarnate, would never let someone else come to harm if he could prevent it. And when the Count opened his mouth and with his poisoned silver tongue said, "And I would hate for Mina to get caught in the crossfire." She knew Dracula had him.

Oh, but that was the thing she would never allow. Jonathan moved and she reacted, grabbing at his hand, "No, Jonathan." He opened his mouth to protest but she spoke quickly- she would not let him change her mind- not on this, "Find another way. You must. If you go with him, it is my duty to follow you. For better or for worse."

The Count's brows drew downwards before his assured smile returned quite out of the blue, "Till death do you part. But Johnny here, is already dead, is he not? Come, stop this charade. Come back with me Johnny, and no one has to get hurt."

Jonathan stood, thinking, breath frozen in his lungs before an idea sparked, the inner flame of his intelligence alight again. He asked carefully, voice low and cautious and almost timid, "Then why haven’t you?"

"What?"

The Count's usually honeyed words had sharped there, like a knife’s edge, a hint of carefully concealed nervousness balancing on the precipice. Jonathan smiled slowly there at that, as if he too had caught it, that slight hesitation giving him strength, "I meant, why haven’t you hurt anyone yet?"

His lips curled into a slight snarl, tone deceptively soft, "I am a gentleman, am I not?"

Oh Jonathan, her wonderful brilliantly clever Jonathan smiled widely, almost looking like his old self, his old confidence as a lawyer coming back to him as naturally as muscle memory, "No, you’re a brute and a beast, Count Dracula. You rule as a beast does, and take by force. For some reason, perhaps because this is God's holy ground or because of something else, you cannot enter here."

Dracula opened his mouth, perhaps to try and convince them otherwise, perhaps to deny such a conclusion, but Sister Agatha pushed open the door at the moment, clearly have just run there, eyes widening at the sight of the count. She strode forward, "Don’t let him in!"

Dracula gnashed his teeth, glared at the three of them, and then with a concussive flap of his cape, he vanished into the black of night.

The couple turned, Jonathan almost immediately paling as the adrenaline of the charged encounter wore off. Sister Agatha raised an eyebrow, "...You are certainly looking rather better, Mr. Harker. I take it the blood did you some good."

Mina nodded, composing herself, trying to catch the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, "Yes, thank you, it did Sister Agatha. Please give the sister who so graciously donated all of our gratitude. I’m afraid that’s all we can give at the moment."

The nun nodded, her quick mind already moving on as she studied Jonathan carefully, "As long as you make sure to drink blood regularly, you’ll be much better at controlling your... cravings. Think of it as a stabilizing agent."

Jonathan put a reassuring arm around Mina, as if he couldn’t quite believe she was safe and well beside him, "Sister Agatha, pardon me, but why didn’t he enter? By all rights we should be dead, or worse."

"Ah, that is a... recently proven theory. Vampires cannot enter any home unless they have been invited inside." She clasped her hands in front of her, “My cousin would know more, I’m afraid. He is quite an expert on the subject of this matter."

Mina took her fiancé's hand glancing up at him with worry, "What are we going to do now?"

Jonathan shook his head in answer, "I do not know. I cannot stay here. Count Dracula has made it quite clear that he is perfectly content to pursue me across any distance." He swallowed, feeling almost faint again, "It is best that I leave this convent and refrain from putting you or anyone else in anymore danger."

Mina nodded, a hand brushing one of her stray golden curls back behind her ears, "A most excellent idea. We can’t let him corner us here. We can move you during the daylight, most carefully lest you be touched by the sun. It should at least give us a slight advantage over the Count."

"Mina, I..."

"I  _will_ be coming with you."  


Her tone brooked no argument. 

Sister Agatha eyed them, wizened brows wrinkling, "You are right. You cannot stay here or it will fast become a siege. I fear you must be prepared to leave at morning's first light or he will have called on his wolves and rats and all his animal underlings to come and bar your way."

Jonathan folded his arms, careful to think through the quick decisions they had to make, "We cannot go to England, he will follow. I dread to think what he will do to that dear country. I cannot- I  _will_ _not_ lead him there."

Agatha smiled grimly, "I will send word. But you must go to England. I can assure you if you do that you will lead him to his death."

Mina frowned, "How can you be so sure of this?"

"My cousin is the good Doctor Abraham Van Helsing. I said before he is quite the expert on such matters especially such obscure diseases as vampirism. If I send a letter of recommendation and an explanation for all these strange happenings, he will undoubtably help you at once. I am quite sure there is a good chance he possesses the knowledge required to end this creature."

Jonathan and Mina glanced at each other, wordlessly communicating as two people who know each other very well are wont to do. At last, Jonathan nodded and, meeting her dark eyes, he gave Sister Agatha their answer, "We will go to England then and rest all our hopes on Doctor Van Helsing's help."

Sister Agatha nodded demurely, "Very well. I should get writing if the letter is to match you across Europe. You will have to move most swiftly to beat the Count and I wish you best speed."

"Wait!" Agatha raised her brow at Mina's exclamation. She blushed prettily, "Wait. I have another favor to ask of you."

"Yes?"

Mina smiled up at Jonathan and then spoke, "I must make one more request of you. Before we leave, I- we, Jonathan, my love, if you agree, I should like to be married before we set off on this treacherous expedition."

Jonathan blinked owlishly, "Mina, no. We cannot...?"

"Why not?" She glanced at him with an earnest concern, "What vexes you so?"

It seemed almost obvious to him, "Do you... do you not find me monstrous? For I can assure you there is no shame in it. Even I am horrified at my undead state and foul appetite for my fellow man. I do not think binding yourself forever to a corpse is the best course-“

Mina whirled, eyes alight with some passionate rage, "I have promised for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till  death do us part and if necessary, beyond that. I meant it when I said I would marry you, my Johnny Blue Eyes." She took his face in her hands, unable to stop the tears from welling up, "You say that you are monstrous, an affront to Christendom, but you are still my dear Jonathan. I do not find a single truly monstrous thing about you, and I could not even if I tried."

"Mina..."

"I wish to be married to you before we begin such a harrowing undertaking. I wish to be made one flesh before the eyes of God. Perhaps in such a way, freely and of my own accord, I can give you back the life that you now lack."

Mina softly wiped his tears away with her thumbs, lips trembling, "I love you, Jonathan, and I could not bear to be parted from you again." 

"Mina..." he sighed, hopelessly in love, "Nothing would make me happier, my love, than to be your husband." 

Mina turned to Sister Agatha who had courteously averted her eyes and pretended she was not a silent witness to their intimate moments. Both of them wiped their eyes and Agatha nodded, "Of course, we are not short of members of the clergy here. I will make the necessary preparations. You will be Mr. and Mrs. Harker in the eyes of God before the evening is up."

Sister Agatha turned to leave, disappearing through the open door, footsteps echoing smartly down the corridor.

Her fiancé chuckled wryly and she asked curiously, "What?"

Jonathan smiled earnestly, his first true smile since Mina had been reunited with him, "I just had the silliest thought. Here we are to be married and I am the one dressed in white!"

They looked at each other for a moment and then both quite melted down into hysterical giggles, clinging to each other in that one singular moment of happiness, untainted by the unexpected darkness they had been thrust into.

For that moment, they were simply two people excited to be married, and what a lovely moment it was indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops forgot to say in the first chapter! My tumblr is here! 
> 
> https://ford-ye-fiji.tumblr.com/


End file.
